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MY GUESSES |
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When confronted with the task of guessing how many people in the towns of Parsippany, Morristown, and Dover were afflicted with AIDS, I did not have much of an idea where to start. Not surprisingly, I was not asked to speculate as to the number of AIDS cases in Mountain Lakes, as the data is unavailable because New Jersey does not publish data for towns below fifty reported cases. Knowing that, economically, my area was fairly well off, my guesses were extremely low. Most of the information I received in school and through the local news about AIDS led me to believe it was an epidemic that plagued those in poor areas and those who were not well educated. Thus, on the first day of my AIDS: Critical Issue in Health class, when asked about the number of cumulative AIDS cases that have been diagnosed in Morris County by my professor, I guessed that there area mere 93 cumulative AIDS cases, when in reality, there are 906 reported cases (table 1). In addition, when asked how many cumulative AIDS cases have been reported for Parsippany, I guessed 37 compared to the actual number of 104 (table 1). These numbers put Parsippany above the national average of 329 AIDS cases per 100,000 people, with 384 cases per 100,000 people. As for Morristown and Dover, I guessed there were 42 and 33 cumulative reported AIDS cases, respectively, to the correct numbers of 192 and 85. This leaves Morristown with an AIDS rate of 442 cases per 100,000 people which lies above the national average, however Dover falls well below it with 174 cases per 100,000 (tables 1 and 3). Due to a billboard near my house that reads “50% of all AIDS cases are women”, I guessed that about 43% of the cumulative AIDS cases in Morris County appeared in females. This was extremely inaccurate, as only 32.73% of the persons living with HIV/AIDS Morris County are in women (table 5). For New Jersey, 29.1% of persons living with HIV/AIDS are women and in the United States, 20.14% of cases are in women (table 5). I was also asked to speculate as to which mode of transmission of the disease was most common in my area. For this, my guess was somewhat on target, as I guessed that intravenous drug use was the most widespread mode of transmission. In fact, intravenous drug use is tied with male to male sexual contact for HIV/AIDS cases in Morris County (table 8). For New Jersey, the highest mode of transmission is seen in heterosexual contact (table 10). Similar to New Jersey, the US’s highest mode of transmission in females is heterosexual contact (table 12). However, for males in the US, MSM accounts for the highest mode of transmission (table 11). Though I was not asked specifically about race, as my area is far from diverse, I found that Morris County’s African American population has a persons living with HIV/AIDS rate of 1,130 cases per 100,000 people, which exceeds the national average AIDS rate for African Americans of 1,009 cases per 100,000 people (tables 6 and 7). New Jersey also exceeds the national average in this realm with a persons living with HIV/AIDS rate of 1,723 per 100,000 people (table 8). Despite this, the cumulative AIDS rate for Morris County falls well below the national average, having only 81 cases per 100,000 people, which was not surprising to me in the least (table 2).
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